Album Review: The Hip Priests - 'Roden House Blues'

Thirty singles, four albums, two compilations, and three EPs across a sixteen-year career, a red-hot live show with scene luminaries such as New Bomb Turks, Dwarves, and The Hellacopters, and none other than Eddie Spaghetti of ‘Greatest Rock n’ Roll Band In The World’ Supersuckers proclaiming them ‘The Finest Rock n’ Roll Band In The UK’, the ‘Priests have vocally described this – their fifth full-length studio album – as ‘by far their best’. Given the strength of their previous output, that’s a bold claim. So does Roden House Blues live up to the description?

In short – ‘yes’. It’s eleven tracks of snotty, rip-snorting proto-punk noise, all Ramones attitude and UK Subs snarl, high energy MC5 riffs and Stooges grit. Dirty garage punk, lo-fi guitars cranked up to 12 backed by thunderous bass and kick drum and overridden with spat, sneered vocals, attitude, and anger. There’s not a track here that’s over four minutes long, and quite frankly that’s exactly as it should be. Kick-ass, potent, then lock, step, and gone.

Think Turbonegro, The Hellacopters, Mötorhead, and The Misfits – trashy, grimy, dirt-under-the-fingernails snot and vitriol. You can smell the stage-sweat and dirty leather jackets in every track, spilled beer, worn plectrums, and grubby guitar strings. It’s that sort of a record – searing, screeching guitar solos, gang-chanted choruses, and A T T I T U D E – it’s a breathless, high-speed rampage through the state of modern Britain and beyond.

Roden House Blues is everything rock n’ roll should be; in your face, frenetic, noisy, sleazy, and more than a little bit nasty. And – despite sixteen years on the job and more records under their belts than a lot of bands manage in their entire careers, it’s fresher, more energetic, filthy, and up-to-date than the majority of new bands on the circuit right now. This is the sound of a band honed from years of playing the grassroots circuit and loving every minute of it. Breakneck, trashy, and full of bile, Roden House Blues is an absolute monster of a record.

Roden House Blues is out on May 5th through The Sign Records.